"can We 'Teach Them to Elect Good Men'? the Application of Military Force in Mexico and Iraq" (Report‪)‬

Abstract The use of force has frequently accompanied U.S. efforts to export democracy and accomplish cultural change. Parallels drawn from a comparison of the American intervention in Mexico during the Woodrow Wilson administration to today's American intervention in Iraq reveal similarities between Wilson and President George W. Bush's world-views and their views of presidential power. In both cases, military forces were sent to accomplish tasks with inadequate equipment, insufficient and inadequately trained personnel, and incomplete analyses of the short and long-term consequences of the U.S. intervention.